The final Center program of Fall 2004 was a symposium entitled
“Imperial Cities,” held before an engaged capacity crowd of more
than 100 people on December 3. We were privileged to welcome
two major scholars: Susan Alcock (Classics, University of
Michigan) and Michael Herzfeld (Anthropology, Harvard).

Professor Alcock presented a paper entitled “Making Sure You
Know Whom to Kill: Spatial Strategies
in Roman Imperial Cities,” in which she
offered a new interpretation of the
aftermath of a large massacre of Roman
settlers in Asia Minor in 88 B.C.E. Using
a wealth of material and visual evidence,
Alcock argued that in the decades
following the massacre a significant
social realignment occurred in the cities
of this part of the empire. This
realignment was visible in practices of elite bonding, crowd
control, and a sense of cultural caution manifesting itself in subtle
separations between Greeks and Romans, notably around the
dinner table. Ultimately, therefore, Alcock’s account offered a
reinterpretation of “the transition from murder to consensus in the
Greek East,” an examination of efforts “to live with, through, and
by a traumatic massacre” in an imperial setting.

Michael Herzfeld discussed a work in progress under the title
“Fabricating Cultural Authority: Eccentric Angles on Urbanity
and Western Identity,” which juxtaposes Athens, Rome, and
Bangkok. He argued that all three, and
the countries they represent, have been
engaged in the civilizational project of
“giving a country a culture,” and that
each in its own way has had to contend
with an “eccentric” relationship with
the West. Particularly interesting for
the Center’s audience was the way in
which parts of Professor Herzfeld’s
talk resonated in this respect with the
presentations at the Center’s April 2004 “Colonial Cities”
symposium, in particular historian Paula Sanders’ talk on
nineteenth-century Cairo. Herzfeld’s talk also, however, touched
on themes similar to Alcock’s, for example the struggle between
“variety and unity,” or imperial efforts to eradicate disorder and
maintain control, and to forge cultural identity, through the
manipulation of space.